This image made available by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows an undated image of Edward Snowden, 29. (AP Photo/The Guardian, Ewen MacAskill)

(Newser)
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Forget the constitutional questions surrounding the NSA program for a second, and ask yourself this: Can we trust our secrets in the hands of an agency that would trust the likes of Edward Snowden? Snowden "sounds like a thoughtful, patriotic young man," Farhad Manjoo allows in Slate. But "he isn't a seasoned FBI or CIA investigator. … He's the IT guy, and not a very accomplished, experienced one at that."

Yet Snowden got, in his own words, access to "everything." He had the NSA's top clearance, access to its most secret documents, and the ability to snoop on, if he had the right email address, President Obama himself. That so much power is going to a 29-year-old high school dropout with no notable security expertise "suggests the worst combination of overreach and amateurishness, of power leveraged by incompetence. The Keystone Cops are listening to us all." Click for Manjoo's full column.